The next time you visit Brookside Optometric for your eye care needs, some things will be different. As we reopen to deliver a full range of essential eye health and vision care, the health and safety of our patients, staff, and the members of our community remains our top priority.
Dry Eyes is a chronic and progressive condition that affects millions of people. In the United States, dry eyes rarely leads to blindness, but in parts of the world near the equator and where medical care is non-existent, it can result in eye diseases that cause blindness. Common symptoms to watch for are dryness, burning, grittiness or sandiness, foreign body sensation, excessive tearing chronic red eyes or eyelid margins, soreness around the eyes, contact lens intolerance or discomfort, and even blurry or fluctuating vision. Even recurrent styes can be a symptom.
Transition technology has reached contact lenses! Bright light and transitions from dark to light can be stressful on your eyes. Acuvue Oasys Transition Contact Lenses quickly adapt to changing light, providing comfortable vision in a wide range of lighting conditions.
Patients always want to know, “Am I nearsighted or farsighted?” but the more they think about it, the more confused they get. It’s really very simple: your prescription is named after what is easier for you to see without glasses. Without glasses, people with nearsightedness (or myopia) see better up close than far away. The larger your prescription, the closer objects need to be for you to see them clearly.
The Third Week of August marks the 5th Annual observance of Contact Lens Health Week. Since Soft Contact Lenses were first invented in 1961, and introduced to the USA by Bausch and Lomb in 1971, the “uniqueness” of the experience has faded a bit and people have often become somewhat lax in their care of these medical devices we are inserting into our bodies. Summer is the perfect time to review some of the practical steps we can take to ensure a safe and comfortable relationship with your contact lenses.
Many people take their contact lenses for granted. Taking unnecessary risks with your contact lenses is like texting and driving: It is an accident waiting to happen. Even people who have been fit properly and do everything right have run into problems. Here are a few key points for you to remember when using contact lenses.
Many patients come to our office at Brookside Optometric Group not only because they have blurry vision, but also because their eyes are often irritated, and even red. Sometimes the irritation and redness have been going on for so long that the patients think it is "normal", especially if they wear contact lenses. In actual fact, they may be suffering from dry eyes or Dry Eye Syndrome (DES).
DES is a disease of the tear film covering the surface of the eye. This condition results in ocular discomfort, blurry vison, and tear film instability that can damage the surface of the eye. This then leads to inflammation of the eye, producing red eyes, swelling, and sometimes even watery eyes. Eventually the corneal surface will be damaged, causing further pain, discomfort, and even blurred vision.
In honor of Women’s Eye Health and Safety Month, I want to offer some tips to my female patients regarding make-up application and removal. I am not talking about tips on how to get the perfect winged eyeliner or smoky eye (but if someone can teach me, that will be greatly appreciated). I am referring to how to put make-up on and remove it to avoid getting dry and red eyes.
One of the common causes of dry eye is meibomian gland dysfunction. The eyelid margin (also known as the waterline) is lined with meibomian glands that secrete oil to lubricate the eye. However, if there is chronic blockage of the gland, it can become inflamed and no longer produce the oil we need to keep our eyes feeling moisturized.
It's another of those hot central valley summers and many of us are choosing to keep cool by enjoying watersports. Boating, wave running and swimming are all excellent ways to beat the heat but there are a few things we all need to watch out for when it comes to our eyes and our eye health.
This is a question that the doctors of Brookside Optometric are asked on a daily basis. And, in the vast majority of cases, the resounding answer is “Yes”! Over 38 million Americans currently wear contact lenses. Although that sounds like a big number, it actually only represents about 16% of those who would benefit from vision correction in the U.S. So, why don’t more people wear contact lenses? In many cases it’s because of common misconceptions. Let’s focus on just one of them.
Well, you don’t actually have disgraceful or defective eyes. You simply have “astigmatism”, which is one of the more commonly misunderstood vision problems. Like nearsightedness (myopia) and farsightedness (hyperopia), astigmatism is a refractive error, meaning it is not an eye disease or eye health problem; it's simply a problem with how the eye focuses light. Refractive errors are the primary reasons why people are prescribed glasses, contact lenses or pursue corrective refractive surgery.